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Ainie Soetanto, BA; Robert S. Wilson, PhD; Konrad Talbot, PhD; Ashley Un, BA; Julie A. Schneider, MD; Mark Sobiesk, BS; Jeremiah Kelly, MD; Sue Leurgans, PhD; David A. Bennett, MD; Steven E. Arnold, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010;67(5):448-457.

Context  Chronic psychological distress has deleterious effects on many of the body's physiological systems. In experimental animal models, chronic stress leads to neuroanatomic changes in the hippocampus, in particular a decrease in the length and branching of dendrites as well as a decrease in the number of dendritic spines.

Objectives  To examine whether analogous distress-related neuroanatomic changes occur in humans and whether such changes might also be related to cognitive dysfunction observed in older people who report greater psychological distress.

Design  Postmortem study of brain tissues from participants of the Religious Orders Study, an ongoing population-based clinicopathological study of aging and cognition.

Setting  The Rush University Religious Orders Study and the University of Pennsylvania Cellular and Molecular Neuropathology Program.

Participants  Seventy-two deceased participants of the Religious Orders Study.

Main Outcome Measures  Densities of microtubule-associated protein 2–immunolabeled dendrites and synaptopodin-immunolabeled dendritic spines in the CA3 subfield of the hippocampus, quantified using semiautomated image acquisition and analysis.

Results  Higher levels of trait anxiety and longitudinal depression scores were associated with decreased densities of dendrites and spines in CA3. Dendrite and spine densities did not correlate with an index of global cognition or with densities of common age-related pathological changes.

Conclusions  Regressive neuronal changes occur in humans who experience greater psychological distress. These changes are analogous to neuronal changes in animal models of chronic stress.

Author Affiliations: Cellular and Molecular Neuropathology Program, Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (Mss Soetanto and Un and Drs Talbot and Arnold); Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois (Drs Wilson, Schneider, Kelly, Leurgans, and Bennett); and Phase 3 Imaging, Glen Mills, Pennsylvania (Mr Sobiesk).

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